104 WALTER AUBREY KIDD, M.D., M.R.C.S., F.Z.S., ON 



heir of all the ages foremost in the files of time. Were it not 

 better not to have been, or to have passed from the reptile to 

 the bird stock rather than along the tedious, often painful 

 course of mammalian development up to man, to end in this 

 cruel fraud ! 



This great conception of order in the world is as essential to 

 the scientific worker as to the far-seeing Sclavonic tribes in the 

 ninth century, who sent to Euric, a Swede, the momentous 

 message : " Our land is large and rich, but order in it there is 

 none. Do ye come and rule over us." Ruric came, the kingdom 

 of Eussia was evolved, and his descendants ruled for seven 

 centuries. 



2. The existence of life on fMa globe, whether it exists in- 

 Mars or any other plauet, is a stupendous fact which demands' 

 to be heard in open court as to its evidence for purpose in this 

 small corner of the universe. It is not here our business to 

 inquire how and when life arose, or what is its destiny ; but 

 that at a certain past epoch life was introduced into a habitable 

 globe, and that this became increasingly habitable and life 

 increasingly complex, are facts eloquent of purpose. 



Despei-ate attempts have been made to show that it is possible 

 that, under certain past conditions of existence, protoplasm may 

 liave been endowed with life by the combination of certain 

 cheinical and physical laws. These attempts will doubtless 

 continue, and will perhaps help to keep certain people out of 

 mischief, but few persons now doubt that the further develop- 

 ment of syntlietic chemistry in pursuit of this object will 

 resemble that long day's frantic work on Carmel of those 

 450 prophets of Baal who from morning until midday, up to 

 the offering of the evening sacrifice, cried, " 0 Baal, hear us,'' 

 but there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that 

 regarded. If life did at a certain epoch and under certain 

 unique conditions arise from a combination of causes, the fact 

 is a miracle none the less, and an incontrovertible argument for 

 purpose, if we are prepared to acknowledge the growing orderly 

 sequence of events which has issued from that primeval fact. 

 To suppose that life, with all its consequent plienomena 

 pregnant with meaning, and in the main with benevolent 

 results, was the result of a series of happy accidents which 

 only once in the history of this globe came into the necessary 

 conjunction, is certainly not according to the principles of 

 modern Science, according to which an intelligible fact must 

 liave an intelligible cause, whether or not we are able at present 

 to discover it. Such notions are much too like the fairy tales 



